Skin friendly
Given that Ah Yuan's products are natural, handmade herbal soaps, it's essential that the company have an understanding of the cultivation and uses of herbs.
In addition to working with organic growers all over Taiwan, Yuan has established its own farms. After acquiring its first farm in Jinshan, the company leased three hectares of terraces in Yangmingshan National Park in 2008. It now grows a variety of medicinal plants, herbs, and wildflowers, including tea-oil camellia, lemon, mulberry, guava, mugwort, lantana, and patchouli, on land there that had been lying fallow for 20 years.
Because the soaps have medicinal properties, Ah Yuan invests real time and effort in their development. Chiang himself has a solid understanding of both Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture, in part as a result of his family background-his great grandfather and great uncle were both TCM doctors and his grandfather was an herbalist.
Among Yuan's many different products are lemon and patchouli soaps. Lemon has antibacterial properties, helps remove old cells, lightens the skin, and shrinks pores. Patchouli has long been used to reduce inflammation, for its cooling effect, to counteract poisons, and treat bruising, and is therefore beneficial to people prone to pimples, acne, housewife's dermatitis, and skin allergies.
When eaten, mung beans and Job's tears have cooling and diuretic effects. In soap, they reduce freckling, smooth the skin, and act as an exfoliant. People who suffer from eczema, prickly heat, and other conditions that cause itching for unknown reasons find some relief in a Yuan soap made with colorful, fragrant Asian puccoon and hibiscus, which contain skin-soothing allantion.
Chiang is most pleased with his company's mugwort soap, which also happens to be its bestseller.
"There's nothing special about adding mugwort to soap," says Chiang. "But no one does it as well as I do." He contends that you have to use different extraction methods on different parts of the mugwort-alcohol for the roots, stewing in hot water for the stems, sun drying for the leaves, and freeze drying for the shoots. He adds that mugwort works best in conjunction with green tea, which contains catechins and anthocyanins that facilitate the action of the antioxidants in the mugwort. His mugwort soap, which also contains complementary ingredients such as green tea, verbena, and lemongrass, helps with irritating skin conditions like eczema, itching, and scaling.
All-natural and handmade, Yuan Soap's products are softer than ordinary soaps and can be formed into all kinds of interesting shapes. Even children can't put them down.